He told the Israelites, “When your children someday ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones represent?’

At that time the Lord told Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites once again.”

So the Israelites camped in Gilgal and celebrated the Passover in the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the plains of Jericho.

The manna stopped appearing the day they ate some of the produce of the land; the Israelites never ate manna again.

But be careful when you are setting apart the riches for the Lord. If you take any of it, you will make the Israelite camp subject to annihilation and cause a disaster.

Achan told Joshua, “It is true. I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel in this way:

They took it all from the middle of the tent, brought it to Joshua and all the Israelites, and placed it before the Lord.

Bright and early the next morning Joshua gathered the army, and he and the leaders of Israel marched at the head of it to Ai.

When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that the city was going up in smoke, they turned around and struck down the men of Ai.

But Israel did plunder the cattle and the goods of the city, in accordance with the Lord’s orders to Joshua.

There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua inscribed on the stones a duplicate of the law written by Moses.

They came to Joshua at the camp in Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land. Make a treaty with us.”

The men of Israel said to the Hivites, “Perhaps you live near us. So how can we make a treaty with you?”

So the Israelites set out and on the third day arrived at their cities – Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath Jearim.

but all the leaders told the whole community, “We swore an oath to them in the name of the Lord God of Israel. So now we can’t hurt them!

“Come to my aid so we can attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and the Israelites.”

The Lord routed them before Israel. Israel thoroughly defeated them at Gibeon. They chased them up the road to the pass of Beth Horon and struck them down all the way to Azekah and Makkedah.

There has not been a day like it before or since. The Lord obeyed a man, for the Lord fought for Israel!

Joshua and the Israelites almost totally wiped them out, but some survivors did escape to the fortified cities.

Then the whole army safely returned to Joshua at the camp in Makkedah. No one dared threaten the Israelites.